


Listen- Listen- Listen

by AceSailorKoshkaRayn



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ((can you fuckin blame me??)), (yes I may be slightly bitter), Body Dysphoria, Bullying, Fem! James Rhodes, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Misgendering, Obadiah Stane is and always will be a creepy motherfucker, Stream of Consciousness, Trans Tony Stark, Underage Drinking, goes through IM 1 & 2, rewrite of IM2 as if the actual writers had bothered to keep Rhodey's characterization consistent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 11:58:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14693763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceSailorKoshkaRayn/pseuds/AceSailorKoshkaRayn
Summary: He's always been a little rough around the edges, even in the way-back-when, when his Mama was still alive and around to brush out his curls and straighten the lace and pink and ruffles.He's always been awkward and out-of-place and trying too hard to please and-Well. He'll probably always be like that, really, but at least he's got people- friends, maybe, even?- who are okay with his intricacies, with all the hitches and glitches and false and rough starts and stops and masks and facades and- things. that come along with being Tony Fucking Stark.





	Listen- Listen- Listen

**Author's Note:**

> tbh idk what the fuck this is. i think i started writing it for someone?? but i don't remember who?? if it was you please tell me???  
> also if i miss any tags please tell me :3

Mama brushes his hair when he’s an itty bitty -“you’re gonna make a beautiful wife someday.”

He cringes, shoulders hunched; he tugs on his braids and wishes they’d go away.

“Ew,” he says, reflexive, reactive -utterly automatic by now, “Boys are icky.”

Mama giggles, taps his head, pets his shoulder. “Mia bella, bella girl-”

 

Papa growls at him when he’s in his shop -“little girls don’t belong in here -Maria!”

He tries to show him his project -“Papa, please-”

“Maria! Get your  _ daughter _ -” he sneers the word like a bad bad curse, worse than the other words that Jarvis says aren’t for little boys  _ or _ little girls -”out of here!”

Jarvis, of course, is the one that fetches him.

 

Listen, arright, he’s never gone to public school, but the private schools aren’t any better, really, maybe worse.

There’s the pretty catholic elementary -he goes with pretty pressed skirts and always comes home bleeding (Jarvis patches him up every time, says, “Master Stark…” like no one else will).

And then there’s high school -itty bitty little boy in skirts and dresses, ten years old and nearly graduated; resented, alone. He knows he’s not normal, but already refuses to care about what anyone else can say -and they can say a whole awful lot.

He’s twelve-goddam-years-old and a freshie in college; no rules no rules it’s a refreshingly beautiful thing. He chops all his long long hair off, practically a buzzcut, and burns it in the metal trashcan on his dorm room balcony.

And then he meets what could be a friend-

 

“The hell are you doing, kid? Fuck, that smells like a motherfucker.”

He may be just a bit drunk, okay, just a bit -the girls in the room down the hall like to throw loud parties, invited him in -he didn’t, couldn’t. Too many people, too small a room; he never wants anyone touching him if he can help it, really.

“Jesus, if you wanted to rebel, couldn’t you have done it in a more stench-free manner?” A warm body plops down onto the concrete beside him, giving him an odd look. “Ain’t you a little young to be going here?”

He scoffed, rolling his whole head. “Ain’t no such thing as ‘too young’ when you’re a fucking genius like me.”

She arched an eyebrow, looking at the garbage can and the greasy blackish smoke issuing forth, “Right…”

He hunched his shoulders, twitching. “Ain’t you gonna ask?”

“Listen, kid- why would I?” She laughs but it doesn’t seem mean. “Everyone’s got their reasons for doing their thing -I may not get it, but they’re them, y’know?”

“I-” he pauses and tries to think through the drink. “I think?” he leans against her and she’s much warmer than he thought anyone could be.

“I’m Jamie,” she says, plucking the bottle from his slack grip. “You’re-?”

“Tony,” he blurts after too long of a silence, only getting that she wanted his name nearly too late, that  _ someone _ didn’t already know him or if she did didn’t care. “I’m. Call me Tony.”

 

His mother screams and almost faints the next time she sees him and that- makes everything worth it.

 

He feels guiltily more comfortable after his parents die -he screams and cries about Jarvis but he burns every bra he and his mother owned the day after the funeral and donates everything else to good charities.

 

It’s not to say so much that he goes downhill after they die, but as he was never up the hill in the first place, he only manages to bury himself so much deeper.

He drinks and he drinks and he drinks but the ‘slut’ never sticks because even though everyone wants to play with the crazy butch Stark dyke they never wanna hang around long in case  _ It _ is catching.

He can’t stand people touching him -it makes him feel sick, anxious, filthy, because he never ever ever feels right. He tried the sex thing, MIT is a wild wild place, but they only ever get so far as them tryna stick their hand down his pants and one hand on his chest before he’s backing the fuck away, biting so hard he draws blood when they don’t fuck the fuck off (“fucking dyke bitch”).

 

So he takes over a company that he never wanted from a father that he hated and gets bossed around by a fat old man whom he looks up to far too much.

Pepper Pepper Pott is a glorious saviour, a god among the mere mortals that inhabit this existential plane. She keeps him on track despite how much he resents it and he loves her a little bit for it and always calls him ‘Mister Stark’ without any weird looks. She might be a friend too.

He designs his greatest most glorious creation -nothing will ever be able to top this, he thinks, not even if he lives to be a thousand and re-revolutionizes the entire world- and names it JARVIS (he can be sentimental sometimes, okay) (Pepper gives him this sort of sad look and he blurts something completely stupid -Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, honestly, someone just needs to sew his mouth shut sometime, jesus christ).

He builds his babies -well they’re not so much  _ babies _ okay he doesn’t really  _ do _ babies okay they are terrifying soft squishy creatures and he might  _ break them _ \- but they’re on a smaller sorta scale than JARVIS and a little dumb and they putter around and break things but he can’t really get mad because they’re his  _ babies _ .

 

And then there’s Afghanistan and rotting away in a hole in the ground, a hard huge magnet getting jammed into his chest and too-rough hands holding him down while he screams.

And then there’s Yinsen, who dies breathing bloody and with a battle cry for the ages, who he will never ever forget.

And then there’s the desert -broken and bloody, still in his no-longer-nice slacks and trying to get  _ anywhere _ away.

And then there’s Rhodey and- and his mouth still tastes like blood and he’s so happy he could cry except he is much much too dried to find a single tear.

-“Hey man,” Jamie Rhodes says, falling to her knees in the sand beside him. “Hey man, how was the fun-vee?”

-And he guesses he does have enough liquid left in him to cry, because he does, leaning forward until his head is pressed against her armored shoulder.

-“Next time,” she says soft, wrapping her arms around him and holding him gently close. “Next time you ride with me.”

And then he’s home -except it doesn’t really feel like home anymore, not really. He never really realized how  _ lonely _ he was before -there was Obie and Pepper and Rhodey and JARVIS Butterfingers U DUM-E -but what does it say that he’s  _ made  _ more friends than found?

-“Welcome home, Sir,” and at least  _ someone _ missed him, even if it was someone he had created.

And then he says -he says that he is never going to make another weapon again, and he can feel the foundations crumbling under his feet.

 

He wonders if he lied to himself when he said no more weapons -is the Iron Man a weapon? He can’t really consider it a weapon sometimes.

Sometimes, when he’s burning down buildings -listening to the weapons inside shriek just as loud as the humans- he thinks yeah maybe.

But sometimes he looks and he just sees a tool -a very beautiful, deadly tool, but something that’s just a tool.

 

And then Obie- Obadiah now, has to be, Obie died when- well he never really was Obie was he?

Obie- Obadiah- Stane wraps a hand around his ribcage, thumbs the sore swollen flaps of fat and flesh that could have once been called breasts (that he’d always hated, god) and says, says-

-“You coulda gone so far, Natasha,” he says, sounding really actually mournful. “You remember this one, right? Shame the government didn’t approve; there’s so many applications for causing short-term paralysis. Ah, Natasha… When I, ah, ordered that hit on you, I worried that I was...killing the golden goose.”

And his heart is being ripped out of his chest in all the ways that count, and he can’t even cry and he’s so confused -where’s JARVIS, right, how did he manage to shut his  _ baby _ off-

The world goes all wibbly-wobbly and he falls down to the ‘shop -the other one, the other, it’s gotta work, gotta-

The stupid stupid bot, who can’t even work a fire extinguisher properly, saves his goddamn life.

“DUM-E you beautiful motherfucker you,” he gasps, and cries -now he cries, now.

He allows himself half a second to mourn for all that he thought he knew but then-

“Pepper!”

 

Then the Iron Monger happens and-

-Obie dies

-Pepper almost dies

-he almost dies but that’s not nearly as important

-“I am Iron Man,” he says, throwing the goddamn index cards behind him because  _ fuck them all _ . And especially fuck that Everheart lady, she can kiss his entire ass.

-“Miss Stark-” the Everheart Lady says, eyebrows attempting to raise in a plastic face. “Wouldn’t you rather, with this new unveiling, have the -the suit relabelled as the Iron  _ Wo _ man?”

-“Look,” he interrupts, suddenly extremely exhausted. He wants to drink an entire fifth of whiskey and pass out on the couch. “It’s not Miss. Don’t call me Miss. I am Iron  _ Man _ . I have no problems with women -Miss Potts is the best human being I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and that is not a euphemism for anything. I just am not one.”

 

And then -and then he’s dying.

He’s dying and it doesn’t seem like anyone cares most days, least of all him.

He gives Pepper his company and a taser-ring because he knows that the board members are creepy old fucks and he wants to fire them all.

Pepper accepts the ring because it’s subtle and useful but tries to fight against the company because she is  _ brilliant _ and knows something is much much too much wrong.

And he’s -yes  _ okay _ he’s being an asshole, he knows, but better he make Pepper cry now than later, and fuck all everyone’s logic.

Pepper calls in the big guns-

-“Rhodey?”

-“Hey Tones,” she says, crushing him in a hug, burying his face in her shoulder. “Pepper said you weren’t doing too hot.”

He splutters, because he is perfectly fine, okay,  _ fine _ , you hear me? But she ignores all his posturing and damn, she really is his friend, and JARVIS is a goddamn traitor.

-“Dying,” Rhodes says, face gone wan, eyes as wide as saucers. “Oh damn, honey, you are deep in this.”

 

There’s the guy with the tentacle-whip-things and he is very angry, very angry, and Tony is  _ sure _ that this is going to be how he dies, by second-rate arc reactor tech, damn it, he wanted to die in some like awesome heroic explosion-y way, not by knockoff zappy blue tentacles.

But he - _ doesn’t _ , which is...maybe a shame, because he is dying anyway already, and that’s- that’s a shame, right? That -that he’s dying, right, not that he didn’t die.

Right.

And then there’s Natalie Rushman, PA, who is somewhat terrifyingly competent and also just plain terrifying.

And he -drinks drinks drinks, because what else can he do but drink, because he is  _ dying _ , and he thinks about throwing the biggest bash that could ever bash, but Rhodey says -Rhodey says  _ hell no _ . There’s a quiet little thing, just him and Pepper and Rhodey and they all get  _ smashed _ , and he wakes up in the morning with a roaring hangover but he doesn’t really care because he feels  _ loved _ .

He says fine to the Air Force, but only if their only pilot is Rhodey, because the thought of anyone else touching his darling is sickening.

He is still dying, and he’s mostly stopped trying to find a cure because why even bother, when Natalie turns out to be Natasha and Secret Agent Man shows up with that damned old model thing, and the stupid super-secret message, which is just all dumb.

He thinks about dying just to spite them.

But then he thinks about how Pepper’s been crying nearly nonstop since she learned, how Rhodey hasn’t let him leave her side even once since he told her, even at risk of her career that she’s worked all her life for, and knows that if there’s even the slimmest chance of it working, then he’s going to try.

“Tastes like-”  _ blood _ “-metal,” he says, placing a tender, protective hand over the blueish glow in his chest. “And coconut?”

Rhodey sweeps him into a bone-bending hug and spins him, and they both pretend to ignore the tears dripping down both their faces.

And then glowy-whip-thing-guy turns up again, definitely not dead, that sucks a lot of dick, and  _ fucking Hammer _ doesn’t know when to quit, jesus, he should know by now that you can’t beat genius with mediocrity, and fuck everything that Vanko bastard is actually fucking smart.

There’s explosions and the Expo almost gets completely destroyed but Pepper -Pepper is the most glorious magical human being to ever exist  _ ever _ , and she stops him, and Natalie-Natasha slams Hammer’s face into the desk, which is great; awesome, actually.

Vanko is -probably most definitely dead this time, yeah, hopefully, explosions and all that.

 

Fury invites him to join his ‘Super-Secret Boy-Band’ (as a consultant only, pft) and while it’s nice to be acknowledged, no. Not today, not tomorrow, probably actually not  _ ever _ , thanks, fuck off.

 

And -Captain America isn’t dead.

“Excuse me?” he asks, because that  _ cannot _ be right, when they’d said that they’d found him he thought they’d meant, like, his corpse or his shield or something, not the definitely-not-dead-but-definitely-not-alive-yet frozen pseudo-corpse they had found.

-“Howard Stark’s...son?” he asks, and, yeah, points, good for you, applause, even if it’s a little awkward.

“One and only,” he’d shot back. “Looking a little blue around the lips, Cap, you need a hug?”

And he -blushes, and it’s the sweetest damn thing. The rest of his face is death pale, but the tips of his ears and his nose darken. Rogers mumbles something inaudible, twisting his fingers in his lap, not looking anywhere at all in particular. He’s not in his uniform anymore, but his hair’s still damp, and Rogers kinda reminds him of a sad old dog abandoned out in the rain.

So he crowds him up and wraps his arms around him, pressing his face into his neck. “Hey Cap; you’re coming home with me.”

 

-“You really like adopting all sorts of strays, don’t you,” Pepper laughs fondly, really, he loves her way too much and she is much better than he deserves.

Steve stutters awkwardly, shuffles, turns red, and it’s far too endearing, and Pepper coos because he is the cutest fucking thing  _ ever _ , unfair.

He scoffed, rolls his eyes, pushes Steve further into the room. “She doesn’t bite, oh Captain my Captain.”

And Steve gets even more awkward, shuffles, hunches his shoulders to try and make himself the smallest person in the room, which, well.

-“Come have a seat, Captain,” Pepper says, and Pepper is a darling, really. Greatest human to walk the earth, no doubts about it.

-“Call me Steve,” he says softly, allows himself to be pushed onto the square couch. “Please?”

-“Of course, Steve,” she smiles, glancing up at Tony and lifting her eyebrows meaningfully.

“Care for a drink, Ca- Steve?” he asks, wandering over to the bar and already reaching for a couple glasses.

-“Can’t get drunk,” Steve mumbles, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

He pouts, nose wrinkles. “Well that sucks a lot of dick,” he sighs, flicks a solid crystal tumbler and listens to it ring. “You wanna drink anyway? Memory’s sake or something.”

-“I...that’d be swell,” Steve hesitates a moment, gaze flicking to him and then back down to his lap. “Tony.”

He grins, pouring even measures into the tumblers and carrying them over. He hands one to Pepper, one to Steve, drops down between them on the couch with a gratified sigh. “Ah, home at last,” he grins at them both.

Steve turns even more red, hunches his shoulders, taking a sip of his whiskey and not coughing at all.

His grin gets even bigger, and he nudges Pepper. “I wanna keep him, can I keep him, let me keep him-”

-“You cannot keep people, Tony,” Pepper tells him, probably again, no, definitely again, they’ve had this conversation about twice now.

“Kept you, didn’t I?” he smirks, shuffling down further and kicking his feet onto the glass coffee table. “Hey, J, play a movie. Something...Disney.”

-“ _ Little Mermaid _ ,” Pep immediately suggests, grinning widely. “That one was always my favorite,” she whispers conspiratorially, winking at Steve across the top of Tony’s head.

He wonders how far that blush goes, cause  _ damn _ , +10 for Irish skin, but elbows them both anyway. “Hush!”

PepperPott laughs, patting his head and kicking her own shoes off, curling up on the couch.

 

He has never seen Steve look so absolutely furious before, and he is maybe-kinda-sorta low-key, y’know,  _ terrified _ .

“Oh boy,” he says, drumming his fingers against the arc reactor set in his chest. “Steve-o, kiddo-”

-“ _ Weapons _ , Tony,” Steve snarls, throwing the weird-ass gun-ish-thing onto the lab table with a rattle. “Weapons, using Tesseract energy. You should have left that goddamn thing in the  _ ocean _ , Fury, you’re messing with things you don’t understand.”

-“And you do, Captain?” Fury asks sharply, arms crossed defensively over his chest.

-“I suspect I know a  _ damn _ sight better than you do,” Steve snaps, hands clenching so tightly around the edge of the table that the metal began to warp under his fingers. “I know what sort of damage these weapons can do -it makes nuclear warfare look like  _ piddlywinks _ compared to what these are capable of.”

He grimaces, glancing between the two, then over to Doctor Banner, who is hunched in the corner nearest the shiny shiny scepter, doing an admittedly passable job at making himself shrink.

“Listen, boys,” he says, stepping forward to try and interrupt this pissing contest of ‘you’re a bigger dumbass.’ “We have bigger things we need to worry about right now, yeah? Like a, y’know, a rampaging Norse god bent on world domination? We can all scream at each other later.”

Steve growls but doesn’t word, spinning away after smashing his fist through the firing mechanism of the odd black gun. It crackles, and everyone but the good Captain cringes, but nothing happens but some scorch marks on the tabletop and a shimmer of blue electricity tracing up his arm.

-“What was this?” The Norse god asks from the doorway -and isn’t that a trip, Norse gods- eyebrows knitting and leaning towards the table.

-“Death,” Steve tells him, all of him carefully flat. “Weapons powered by the Tesseract.”

-“...Ah,” Thor says, and nods, and takes a carefully measured step back. “Yes, well, I can see why that would be.”

Steve growls, clenching his fists and shaking his head. “Intelligence agency that fears intelligence, yeah,” he nods to him, giving his shoulder a squeeze as he moves to stand behind him. If it happens to be as far away from Fury while still being in the lab, well, he’s not going to say anything.

-“If we’re done,” Natasha says to them all, voice of reason.

He notices that Banner goes stiff on the other side of the room, shoulders hunched, he gives Natasha a pointed look.

She tells him quite eloquently with her eyes to just not touch this button yet or she will probably injure him in some less than pleasant ways, so he nods and shuffles over to go metaphorically prod Banner.

 

And then things -explode.

He almost gets ground into mince-of-Tony and  _ damn _ would that piss Miss Potts off but doesn’t, and Steve comes out yelling at him and crying a bit which always makes him feel guilty, damn it.

Banner is -gone, so they’re down one, but then they also have this Infamous Hawkeye fella (ha, Steve’s catching) so that’s up one, but Thor is gone too and Coulson is  _ dead _ so they still end up in the negative range of available personnel.

And-

-“The thing is, I’m  _ always _ angry,” and oh, Brucie, what have they done to you you darling green shnookums you.

There’s a giant hole in the sky, then, bright and black and oh, how he knows he’s already gonna have nightmares.

-“Aliens,” Cap sighs, scrubs a hand through his ridiculous blonde hair and stares around, but can’t take too long or he’ll get fucking obliterated.

And then there are space alligator-crocodile-whale-things with  _ way _ too many fucking flippers and way too many goddamn teeth, holy fuck and- well.

“Let’s never do that again,” he gasps, spinning to shake off some of the sticky slime from the Leviathan’s gut.

_ “Affirmed, Sir” _

And the nuke -there’s a flight he never thought he’d have to take, back up into space, filled with unfamiliar stars and invading forces.

He calls Pepper-Pott but it just rings and rings and rings and-

-“What are you doing, Tony?”

“Hey Pep,” he gasps, shoulders aching, the blueblueblue of the New York Sky fading below him the further he goes.

-“Don’t do this, Tony,” she sobs, and damn, he promised he’d never make her cry again.

“Gotta, Pep,” he says, launching the nuke and all of his weaponry and the suit crackles and dies, and is failing, red flashing warning-bright across the HUD and the whistle of an explosion in front of him.

This- this is a way he can handle dying, yeah, this is much better than those tentacle-whip-things, yeah.

But he.

Doesn’t.

“Oh, jesus, fuck,” he gasps, heart pounding painfully, Hulk-spit sprayed across his face. His mouth tastes like blood and coconut, and he can feel exactly all of his limbs trembling inside the suit. “What the hell, what just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me, even you, Buff-n-Blonde.”

And Steve smiles at him, tired,  _ visibly _ drooping, and if the Blonde One is droopy then it’s a wonder anyone else is even alive, really, like wow.

-“We won,” he says, soft and tired and ready for a nap in that hammock by the penthouse pool that he’s so fond of.

“Alright,” Tony says, sighing and dropping back down. The others are gathering around, and Thor just right-out picks him up and sets him back on his feet. “Alright, hey, good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what the fuck it is, but I wanna try it.”

-“We are…” Thor looks up up up Stark Tower, “not finished yet.”

“...Shawarma after?”

Shawarma after.


End file.
